


Daytime Warrior

by AurelliaCresswell



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mild Angst, trigger warnings for loss and depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 06:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14743655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AurelliaCresswell/pseuds/AurelliaCresswell
Summary: One-shot. The ramifications of the Dominion War and what it meant for one Bajoran woman.





	Daytime Warrior

During the day, she is a warrior, burning with a divine purpose to right the wrongs that have been done to her people for the past several decades. She recognizes the bad, removes it, and fills it with light and right and _good_. The land, her people, the souls forced to suffer for all those years... they will heal this way. She is sure of it.

During the day, she is a bureaucrat, smoothing the transition of her planet from slaves, to freed, to allied. Life under the Federation has its drawbacks, but the benefits far outweigh the losses. Bajor; battered, broken, but not lost, is ready to take its place as a galactic power. There is strength in being a small part of the one. A drop in the ocean. Silently, she hates the images that thought conjures.

During the day, she is the Colonel, she is a mentor, a guide to her people in the absence of the Emissary. She bears these roles with as much grace and strength as she can muster. She did not ask for them, nor did anyone else ask if she wanted them. As with most things in her life, they have been thrust upon her, and she has done what she has done best. Adjust. Compensate. _Power_ _through_.

She remembers this in the morning, after she has caked far too much cosmetic on her face to hide the dark circles. She remembers that the war is won, and she should be celebrating every day that she is alive. She stares at herself in the mirror and wills the redness of her eyes to lesson with nothing other then her fervent demand. She has done so well in her endeavors because she is tenacious and ferocious.

But since her last trip to the Gamma Quadrant, she has felt less and less herself.

At first, it wasn't so bad. It wasn't as if she and the Constable had been able to spend much time together towards the end of the war. She had planned on dying next to Damar and Garak on Cardassia. That she saw him on the view screen, and then in person, felt like she was being spoiled.

She had returned after witnessing his homecoming, and at first felt no different. There was work to be done. She could do this. And she did. Work was always a refuge for her. Prophets knew that there was always another report that needed a be written, or a status update given. She happily completed any task sent her way, working herself to the bone so that sleep would come easily.

After the fifth day, she found herself wandering the Promenade, her eyes traveling to the empty and dark security office. Her stomach swoops uncomfortably, and she returns to her quarters and waits it out. Two hours later, she falls asleep.

The next night is just as bad. Possibly worse. She is unable to sleep until the sun would be rising on Bajor. She tells herself it is an adjustment. Sleeping alone had always come easily to her, and there is no reason she should be experiencing acute insomnia when she has so much to do every day from here until the rest of her life. But there is a large part missing, a hole that she doesn't know how to fill, and it seems to grow bigger and bigger day after day.

She has resorted to therapy with Dax. Sometimes it is more of a hassle than she can handle. The newest host is amiable enough, and Kira is grateful for her presence. But there was something readily calming and assuring with Jadzia, something she misses terribly. She realizes that she has lost most everyone she would ever think to confide in, and it is there, in Ops, as the realization comes crashing down on her: she is alone. She _will_ _be_  alone for an indeterminate amount of time. Relying on anyone outside of herself is not an option.

She stops seeing Dax after that.

During the day, she is a warrior, because she knows no other way to deal with pain. She worries this one will last the rest of her life, but does not dare voice her worries aloud. She is the strong, the unbroken. She must always remain so, even when the only thing still whole is the facade, and she's shattered into a million hopeless pieces.

During the day she is a warrior, because it is the only way to put the victim in her dreams to bed.


End file.
